Have you ever wondered how to stop becoming your own worst enemy?
You are in luck, and this is an unbelievable treat.
I am interviewing Gary John Bishop, the author of the book Unfu*k Yourself: How to Get Out
of Your Head and into Your Life.
It's sold more than two million copies, and this is part one of my interview with him.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, top 1% attorney and the author of the books Negotiate Like You
M.A.T.T.E.R. and Breaking Free: A Step-by-Step Divorce Guide, and I've helped thousands of
people go from lives of drama, trauma, and chaos just step into lives of freedom, possibility,
and purpose.
And I do the same thing for you right here on this channel and in these videos and in
my interviews and when I go live.
So make sure you hit subscribe and you hit that notification bell, and you'll get notified
when I upload brand-new content.
So without further ado, let's dive into part one of my conversation with Gary.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Negotiate Your Best Life.
I'm Rebecca Zung and I'm super excited today to interview an amazing guy, New York Times
bestselling author, leading personal development expert, life coach, author of the bestselling
book Unfu*k Yourself, as well as Stop Doing That Sh*t and Do the Work, and his forthcoming
book, or maybe it has already come out, called Wise as Fu*k.
And so this is obviously going to be a very frank, very direct conversation.
You can just tell by the names of his books.
So I'm really excited, welcome, Gary.
Hi, thanks for having me, Rebecca.
Thank you.
So tell us a little bit about your background, the journey to becoming the New York Times
bestselling author of Unfu*k Yourself.
Obviously there's a story behind there.
Well, I'm originally from Scotland, which is why I talk like Shrek.
Why you talk like Shrek!
So a number of years ago, probably about 15 years ago, I was happily married, I was expecting
our first son, and I was at a point in my life where I was just kind of jaded.
I was apathetic about my life, where it was going, what I was doing.
And then a relative of mine actually suggested that I go and do this personal development
workshop thing, and I just thought, "Oh my gosh, this sounds terrible."
Like a workshop, I just had no idea that I would participate in such a thing.
But it was very revealing and it gave me my first insight into the way that I work, but
not in a psychological way, actually in much more kind of holistic way.
So that started me off of my pathway to actually empower myself, to raise my sights a little
as to what my potential could be or some kind of possibility for myself.
And what happened was is I was getting my stuff together and I was noticing these big
results in my life, I had increased my income, and I was much happier and more satisfied,
had more peace-of-mind with what I was doing.
And I actually started to talk to other people about what I was discovering, and I was reading
and I was understanding it in a much deeper way.
So that kind of led me on this pathway where eventually I became a senior program director
actually at one of the world's largest personal development companies, and I traveled all
over the world and delivered facilitated workshops, believe it or not, to thousands and thousands
of people.
I did that for a number of years, and then the last five or six years has been more about
myself and my writing, and kind of giving away what I've been learning and what I'm
continuing to learn.
Awesome.
Awesome, awesome.
So you wrote this book and it's called Unfu*k Yourself, and from what I understand it kind
of started out as this little book that you self published, that you wrote for the people
that you were coaching, right?
Yeah.
I had no idea, certainly no sense of, "Well, this is going to be a big-selling book."
I mean, I think that book sold over 2 million copies now.
I know, that's incredible.
Incredible.
Yeah, right.
But I really wanted to...
This was at a time when there weren't really many books around with a curse word in the
title, right?
I mean, now there's just so many of them, but at the time there was none.
Well, there was two, but one of those books that had a curse word in the title, the title
was Badass.
It wasn't even really a curse word.
Yeah, but that's another one of those that's kind of shocking, right?
Right.
But I had so many people tell me, "Don't do it because you can't advertise it anywhere.
Amazon won't let you advertise it, Facebook won't let you advertise it."
But I really thought, "This has got to be my book.
I've got to call it what I would call it."
So I did that, released it myself, and I just went online and talked about it.
I would go on Facebook and talk about it, I'd go Twitter and talk about it, and we ended
up selling like 30,000 copies in five and a half months.
And then, before I know it, I've got over 20 offers for the book from major publishers.
Off it went, and it's been kind of following on that trail ever since.
Yeah, and now you have another one.
Is it out yet?
I have a new audio book, it's called Ask Gary F*cking Anything, and I used that curse word
because I wanted people to get that it's really anything, you could ask me anything.
And I'll see if I can take a stab at it for you.
So I took eight questions in the studio, and I never wrote anything, I just went in to
the studio and answered the questions.
It gave me a chance to dive into some of my philosophy and how I see things, and then
give it to people for real-life situations.
It was both really challenging but really refreshing.
I loved doing it, it was such a great opportunity.
And so what's the basis of your philosophy?
What differentiates you from other life coaches?
I'm not interested in making you feel better is fundamentally at the core of a lot of it,
but it's based in existentialism in certain aspects.
Existentialism, like phenomenology and ontology, which goes around the idea that you are a
being and you're a being in every moment of every day.
I'm interested in one, how did you become this way and what's in the way of you becoming
some other way?
Which includes all the changes that one might want to make in life.
So it gives you this really unique insight into the background of people without being
psychological about it, like I said, which really isn't my field anyway.
People talk about my delivery, like I speak the truth or something.
I think a lot of people feel as if they speak the truth.
What I often find myself saying it's the sort of thing that you're uncomfortable listening
to because it's so personal, but at the same time, you do know there's an element of gravitas
to it that makes sense.
So I guess the combination of all of that gives it my unique little flavor.
Yeah.
I love the fact that you talk about ontology, and the reason why I love that is that I've
had the same business coach for around 12 years now and she is certified in ontology.
She was the first person I ever heard used that word.
And I remember her saying, "It's the study of being," which I was like, "I don't really
even know what the heck you're talking about."
Can you talk a little bit more about ontology specifically, and what does that mean, the
study of being?
Right, so one of my favorite philosophers is a guy called Martin Heidegger, he was a
German existentialist from the early part of the 20th century.
And he was an ontologist, ontology was a big part of his field.
So if you think of yourself, you're a human being.
Now, most people online these days talk about their favorite human or my human, but you're
missing the most important part, which is the being part, right?
Because you're always being something.
You're always being something.
Being what?
Being angry, being resentful, being compassionate, being understanding.
Those are ways of being.
What's a way of being?
A way of being are certain predictable thoughts that you have coupled with an emotional state,
and then you throw in the mix of some behaviors.
In general terms, that's a way that you be.
Now, as an adult human being, you've got very defined ways of being, very predictable and
repetitive ways that you be in life.
And when you were a kid, you had a lot more of those available to you.
You would be lots of different ways when you were little, but as you've gotten older, as
we've all gotten older, we're more like a certain thing.
You have one way of being all the time?
Well, it's certainly within a very tight range, very kind of predictable sense of self.
So in ontology, we not only take a look at what was the pathway, how did you end up this
way?
Of all the ways that one could end up, we end up in a very distinct way.
But then, what am I missing out on?
What else is available to me?
What if I could go into that situation and be courageous?
And I'm never typically courageous, but man, what if I could be courageous?
Now, that would be a way of being for you to explore.
What would life look like if you took it on from the aspect of courage?
Or what if I took life on from the aspect of love or understanding or compassion?
So it allows you to shift the context and really participate in life.
Is that the first step of figuring out how to unfuck yourself?
By going, "Okay, I figured out that this is my way of being, this is kind of how I wound
up being."
Right, right.
It certainly helps.
My second book was called Stop Doing That Sh*t, and in it I actually give you a blueprint
as to how you ended up the way you are.
You have to identify three things about yourself that you've maybe never thought about, like
a certain view you have.
One of them is your view of yourself.
So most people, if you ask them, "What do you think yourself?"
People will be fairly positive, they'll say, "I think I'm a good person.
I'm decent, I do my best, I'm a hard worker."
I say, "No, but what's your opinion of yourself and your darkest corner of your mind?"
And then there's some things that'll come out like, "Well, I don't think I'm smart enough,"
or, "I don't think I'm good enough."
You weren't born that way, you ended up that way.
You didn't pop out being like, "Oh shit, I'm not smart enough."
That kind of came to you at some point in life and embedded itself in with each of us,
wherever we ended up at.
Well, and I think it's these conclusions that you end up drawing based on faulty reasoning
when you're five years old or something, right?
Right, right, but if you think about it that way, like I've concluded something about myself.
If I've concluded something about myself, it never goes anywhere.
It rises, it falls, but it never moves, it never leaves me.
So if what I've concluded about myself is I'm not smart enough, if I've not done the
work to uncover that for myself, it'll drive me in a certain direction.
I'll just make decisions based on that without even checking in to see what I'm basing it
on.
It includes a bigger picture.
But sure, your ontological makeup, how you became you, it's not only very revealing but
very freeing, because then you start to see alternatives to what you got yourself stuck
with.
And how does self-talk layer in with your ontological being?
Yeah.
Well, you're always talking to yourself about the same stuff, and you've got the same hooks
and the same triggers and the same hangups.
You've got to try on the idea that you're constantly listening for and looking for evidence
that your subconscious view of everything is accurate.
So in the background of your mind, it's these little triggers like, "Oh yeah, I need to
remember to do that, and I can't do that.
Well, I'm not going to do this, and that's stupid."
So the whole noise in the background is shaping a certain view of the world, I feel like.
That noise, you have to start checking in on that.
What am I saying to myself?
What is that based on?
Why did I tell myself no there instead of yes there?
To me, that growing sense of awareness of your own automatic little voice in your head,
the more you get [crosstalk 00:13:53]- Yeah, which is usually not a really smart
little voice.
It's kind of like an idiot.
Right!
I would love to wake up in the morning and my little voice is like, "You are amazing."
Yeah, but it never does.
No.
It doesn't!
It goes, "Oh, shit, here we go again."
It's the same noise in your head.
But it's not some kind of accident, that noise, it's designed to equip you to survive in the
world, but the problem is you're surviving stuff that you just don't need to survive.
You shouldn't survive your job, you're not supposed to survive your marriage, you're
not supposed to survive your body.
But we end up with these mechanisms, that we're in this kind of internal war, and so
I want people to do the right kind of work on themselves in a way that makes sense to
them and allows them to get insight into themselves, to free themselves up.
Because ultimately, that kind of introspection is really what starts you on your way.
Thanks for watching this part one of my conversation with Gary John Bishop.
This was an unbelievable conversation, and part two is even more exciting, more interesting,
and he's given me such advice that I personally have been thinking about every day since I
had my conversation with him.
If you haven't subscribed already, make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell,
and that way you'll get notified when I upload part two of this video.
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If you are getting ready to negotiate with a narcissist, go ahead and grab my free Crush
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And if you want to join me, my free private Facebook group is called Narcissist Negotiators
with Rebecca Zung.
I'd love to see you in that as well.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
I'm Rebecca Zung.
Remember, today's a great day to start negotiating your best life.
I'll see you in the next video.